Pages

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

The little choo-choo that could

…how objective, correct, and obvious their reading of the “plain meaning” of the Scripture passages in question are.

http://www.reformedcatholicism.com/

***END-QUOTE***

Yet another one of Johnson’s little lullabies, the better to put the Christian brain to sleep. A feel-good piece that gives you a nice warm sensation in your tummy, but doesn’t amount to anything.

Reading Kevin is always like overhearing one of those boyfriend/girlfriend squabbles. On one side of the table the girlfriend is regaling her boyfriend with what all she did today while, on the other side, the boyfriend is nodding in all the right places, but his gaze overshoots her to the ballgame on the TV screen. At some point the girlfriend abruptly stops her recital and accuses the boyfriend of “not listening” to her. The boyfriend defends himself by repeating some of her words verbatim.

But that doesn’t get him out of trouble, for “listening” has, by her definition, to do with eye-contact, undivided attention, and something resembling actual interest in the topic of conservation.

Johnson is one of those folks who pretends to be a good listener, to listen to all sides. The body language is well-rehearsed. But it’s all part of his little act. He writes these pieces, not to advance the argument, but to give himself a verbal pat on the back.

Take the above statement of Kevin’s. Can he cite a single direct verbatim quote of mine in which I grounded my critique of Paul Owen on an appeal to the “objective,” “obvious,” or “plain meaning” of the verses in question?

Even if I were to use those adjectives from time to time, that comes at the conclusion of an exegetical argument, and not as a substitute for exegesis.

You see, Kevin isn’t actually interacting with anything I did—or Dr. White, for that matter. What we get, instead, is generic Enloe-speak. What I actually said is totally irrelevant to Kevin’s piece. I could reproduce The Cat in the Hat, and he would resort to the very same Enloe-speak.

BTW, who is imitating whom here? Does Kevin play the parrot, or Enloe?

What I, in fact did—and this holds true for Dr. White as well—was to present a series of reasoned arguments for the traditional Reformed reading and against Dr. Owen’s revisionist reading.

***QUOTE***

Never mind that there is more than one way to view particular passages of Scripture or that two different reads on the text of Scripture normally come from different theological starting points. It doesn’t matter because we are after the so-called “plain meaning” of Scripture here. At least, that is what some of us were taught growing up in Baptist circles.

***END-QUOTE***

I didn’t grow up in Baptist circles. The first church I attended as a young child was a Lutheran church, followed by a Presbyterian church when I was an older child, followed by a Methodist church when I was a teenager. I’d add that the expository preaching was hardly in the forefront of any of the churches I attended during my formative years.

But, of course, that doesn’t fit with Kevin’s fabricated psychological profile. Kevin had to fabricate a psychological profile for his theological opponents because that way he is able to control the objections. He can make up fake objections which are so much easier to answer that real objections.

***QUOTE***

For example, no matter how much one would like to identify the elect in John 10, there is no specific mention of them in the passage and it is a clear a priori assumption on the part of Reformed Baptists that when Jesus spoke of the sheep in John 10 he most assuredly meant “the elect” as Reformed Baptists dogmatically understand the term. One brings this to the passage and the proof that this is the case is presented nicely in the presentation by Dr. Owen on John 10 that notes that the overwhelming context of John [and I would add, the Old and New Testaments] sees covenant members in a way completely different than some would have us believe. Why the difference in looking at the passage?

***END-QUOTE***

i) Notice the calculated effort to skew the players. This is not the Reformed Baptist reading of Jn 10. This is nothing less than the traditional Reformed reading of Jn 10, whether by Calvin or Reformed Baptists or confessional Presbyterians or Welsh Calvinist Methodists.

ii) Also take close note of his diversionary tactics. Is the word “elect” used in Jn 10? No. And the case for the Reformed reading was never contingent on the presence of dogmatic nomenclature in that passage.

iii) The question, rather, is whether the concept is present. Both Dr. White and I, in responding to Paul Owen’s contention, have marshaled a number of exegetical arguments to demonstrate its presence. Oh, and we’ve also rebutted his arguments to the contrary.

That’s one of the differences between Kevin and us. We actually interact with what our opponents have said, while Kevin would rather toy with dummies and decoys.

iv) Kevin acts is if some folks were born Baptist, that it’s a genetic thing—like one’s blood type. Needless to say, many Christians converted to the Reformed faith. They don’t see election in Jn 6 or 10 because of clear a priori assumptions they bring to the text. Rather, they arrived at the Reformed faith by overriding their a priori assumptions. Scripture has that corrective power--for those with ears to ear.

***QUOTE***

The difference is there because both views look at the passage from a different theological point of view. The same is true for a reading of John 6. If your theology of the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper excludes any notion of a change in elements, then you are not going to see such things in John 6. You’ve reasoned it out before you ever came to the text. I’m not endorsing transubstantiation here but only noting that your theological understanding affects the way you look at Scripture. If, on the other hand, you are a practicing Roman Catholic, any reference to eating the flesh and blood of Christ in Scripture is going to be relevant to a discussion of the Eucharist.

***END-QUOTE***

This is another palpably false characterization of the differences. As I pointed out in the very piece he references, Lutherans subscribe to the Real Presence, yet they don’t find it in Jn 6.

Once again, Kevin pretends to be reading, but he isn’t. He pretends to listen, but he doesn’t.

***QUOTE***

Pretending our own interpretation of Scripture is akin to its original meaning without reference to our understanding of theology is indeed a hard habit to break. There are still modernistic fundamentalists who engage in this sort of thinking. Real exegesis on the other hand takes note of these issues and deals with them accordingly.

***END-QUOTE***

i) What is he claiming? That original intent is irretrievable? That we can never know what Scripture was meant to mean? Does he apply that to his own theology, perchance?

ii) Notice how much time Kevin spends “talking” about “real” exegesis without every doing real exegesis. Notice how much time he reiterates his trite little truisms about the presuppositional element of exegesis without every moving to the next stage of the process.

***QUOTE***

Exegeting the Scriptures for Christ was not a matter of acontextual grammatical-historical reviewing of verbs, nouns, and sentence structure or a collated survey of how this word is used in this or that passage. For Christ on the Emmaus road, the text was viewed in light of his historical and redemptive work and who He was. There was additional content present in the context besides just the words of the Old Testament. Christ himself was the context and anyone who looks at the Old Testament today without understanding who Jesus was and what it was He did is not doing justice to the meaning of the text.

***END-QUOTE***

i) Given all the relativistic rigmarole, how does Kevin know that the Christ he happens to find in Scripture is the real deal, and not the Christ of the Watchtower or the Christ of the LDS?

ii) To speak of “acontextual” grammatico-historical exegesis is, of course, an oxymoron. The grammatico-historical method is all about the text in context.

iii) Lk 24 is simply a narrative summary of events. It doesn’t give us any detailed illustrations of how Jesus actually exegeted the OT.

***QUOTE***

Pretending that we view Scripture without reference to these things and in an acontextual way keeps us from truly examining what the Scriptures actually do say. We also aren’t on this path alone and pretending that we can interpret Scripture without respect and reverence for other Christians and their corresponding views both now and in times past also does damage to proper biblical interpretation.

***END-QUOTE***

Once again, Kevin is just talking to himself—speaking into a tape-recorder and listening to the playback. The rest of us are quite conversant with context and the history of interpretation.

***QUOTE***

The hard part for some is admitting that our theology hasn’t come solely from Scripture. We want to say that the Bible has given us the view we now enjoy and that we came to that view through a study of the Scriptures. And that is probably true to a point. But we also relied on the teaching of other men. We sat at the feet of men in the Church trained to think and present things in a certain way. We studied the Scriptures with commentaries and theological works by men who have their own point of view and represent particular schools of theological thought. Some of us learned the Greek language and how it is to be used in the text a certain way (and a way different than others, such as the early Fathers).

***END-QUOTE***

In dropping these cliché-ridden truisms in every other sentence, Kevin acts as though he were saying something terribly novel and profound—even revolutionary.

Dr. White and I and others are quite presuppositionally self-aware. We know our own sources of influence. We know the viewpoint of the commentators and theologians.

***QUOTE***

More than that, we shouldn’t rule out the role of the Spirit working through the means of His Church to help us along the way in understanding Scripture aright.

***END-QUOTE***

What is this? Quaker exegesis? God told me that John 6 is an allegory of the Lord’s Supper?

***QUOTE***

The Reformers believed in sola Scriptura but they never envisioned it to be what it has become in today’s circles.

***END-QUOTE***

Really? How does Kevin know that? Is he channeling the shade of John Calvin? Is he holding a séance for Luther? Does John Knox appear to him in the shower?

***QUOTE***

The Reformers never meant for Christians to come to the truth of Scripture without reference to the teachers, traditions, and theologies of the Church and to assert that they did is to deny the Reformed understanding of these things. The “plain view” of Scripture is only plain to those who forget that they too rely on their own understanding of the nature of the faith and the teaching of their own theological traditions and the Church.

***END-QUOTE***

Kevin is like Rousseau, from the comfort of his Parisian salon, writing about the noble savage in the New World. Rousseau had never met a savage, much less a noble savage, but that didn’t stop him from writing all about their social code.

It’s clear that Kevin and his ilk only talk to their like-minded friends. They talk about their opponents, not to them or with them. Otherwise they could hardly churn out so much pulp fiction about their opponents.

***QUOTE***

Here at ReformedCatholicism.com we try to take a more humble approach.

***END-QUOTE***

Yes, Kevin is humble—and proud of it. He has a chest-full of humility medals lest anyone forget how humble he is.

***QUOTE***

We don’t always succeed.

***END-QUOTE***

Quite an understatement, but this is the truest thing he’s said so far.

***QUOTE***

That doesn’t mean we always get it right but it does mean that we do not stand alone.

***END-QUOTE***

That’s true, too. He stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Tetzel, Erasmus, Johann Eck, Alexander VI and all other such heroes of the faith once delivered.

2 comments:

I just wanted to clear something up: Kevin is the Parrot. You can tell him by the colors of his plumes. Enloe is perceived by some undertrained bird-watchers to be a theological Peacock, but unfortunately he is a run-of-the-mill internet Wild Turkey.

I love how this guy says that there's more than one way to read a passage. That's fabulous. Faux-reformed Catholicism met and mated with Postmodernism somewhere behind the rhetorical barn.

"Presupposition" is just a sweet-smelling word for:

"I couldn't exegete a passage if my life depended on it, and I don't want to because if I actually do any exegeting I might be contradicted, so instead I slap an extrabiblical Tradition template down over the top of Scripture, then make fun of people who do actual exegesis, since that makes my beliefs true."

But it takes a lot of cyber-ink to write all that, so the single word "presupposition" is added. The more common secular word for this is "prejudiced reading".